Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite (2004)

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (born November 4, 1916 in Saint Joseph , Missouri , † July 17, 2009 in New York ) was an American television journalist and news anchor at the television station CBS .

Life

Walter Cronkite's parents were the dentist Walter Leland Cronkite, Sr. and his wife Helen Lena Fritsche. He began his journalistic career as a university correspondent for the Houston Post newspaper while in high school and college . After graduating, he went to Oklahoma City as a radio announcer for WKY . He was a journalist and editor for the EW Scripps Company and United Press.

From 1942 to 1945 Walter Cronkite was war correspondent for the United Press International agency and foreign correspondent in the reopened offices in Amsterdam and Brussels . He was the chief correspondent at the Nuremberg Trials and office manager in Moscow from 1946 to 1948 . 1948/1949 Cronkite was a correspondent for CBS News and 1950/1951 special correspondent.

Cronkite as an outside reporter in the Vietnam War

Walter Cronkite was the main newscaster for the CBS Evening News from April 16, 1962 to March 6, 1981. His nightly news program he used with the dictum become sentence "And that's the way it is" ( German  "So it is." ) To finish. Cronkite became known worldwide when he reported on the CBS News on November 22, 1963 about the assassination attempt on President John F. Kennedy and hosted the televised broadcast of the 1969 moon landing . Cronkite's report from Vietnam was aired on February 27, 1968 and initiated the US admission that it could not win the Vietnam War . He became one of the most famous faces of US television and a role model for many journalists. In 1973 television viewers voted him "Most Trusted Man in America"; his trusting manner also earned him the nickname Uncle Walter . On February 14, 1980, Cronkite announced that he would retire from hosting the CBS Evening News . He hosted his last broadcast on March 6, 1981. He was succeeded by Dan Rather for the next 24 years .

On March 30, 1940, he married Mary Elizabeth Simmons Maxwell, called Betsy , who died on March 16, 2005, two weeks before their 65th wedding anniversary. They had three children.

Cronkite was an avid sailor and held the US amateur radio callsign KB2GSD.

Awards and honors

• 1987: Four Freedoms Award in the category of freedom of expression
• 1995: Great Silver Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria
• In 2010 the asteroid Cronkite was named after him.
• On November 4th, 2016 for his 100th birthday, Cronkite was honored with a Google Doodle .

literature

• Robert G. Picard: Journalist as Hero. The Adulation of Walter Cronkite. In: Ray B. Browne, Marshall W. Fishwick (Eds.): The Hero in Transition. Bowling Green University Popular Press, Bowling Green OH 1983, ISBN 0-87972-237-1 , pp. 196-207 ( preview on Google Books).
• Peter Ludes (Ed.): Visualizing the Public Spheres. Interviews with Walter Cronkite, Frank Stanton, Reuven Frank, Richard Wald, Robert MacNeil, Cathe Ishino, Hanns Joachim Friedrichs, and Ruprecht Eser and Analyzes. Fink, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-7705-2988-X .
• Don Carleton: Conversations with Cronkite. Foreword by Morley Safer . Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin TX 2010, ISBN 978-0-9766697-3-9 .
• Douglas Brinkley: Cronkite. Harper, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-06-137426-5 (reviews by Chris Matthews in the New York Times , Robert MacNeil in the Washington Post, and Louis Menand in The New Yorker ).

Web links

Commons : Walter Cronkite  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Walter Cronkite in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• YouTube video "Amateur Radio Today"
• Thorsten Dörting: Walter Cronkite is dead. In: Spiegel Online , July 18, 2009.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Walter (Leland) Cronkite (Jr.). Political Commentary from Wire Service to Wired Nation. In: Dan D. Nimmo, Chevelle Newsome (Ed.): Political Commentators in the United States in the 20th Century. A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood, Westport CT 1997, ISBN 0-313-29585-9 , pp. 71-80, here p. 74.
2. ↑ Reymer Klüver : The Great Deception , in: SZ, March 3, 2018, p. 55
3. ↑ Ginger Rudesal Carter: Walter Cronkite. In: Michael D. Murray (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Television News. Oryx, Phoenix AZ 1999, ISBN 1-57356-108-8 , p. 56 f.
4. ^ Walter (Leland) Cronkite (Jr.). Political Commentary from Wire Service to Wired Nation. In: Dan D. Nimmo, Chevelle Newsome (Ed.): Political Commentators in the United States in the 20th Century. A Bio-Critical Sourcebook. Greenwood, Westport CT 1997, ISBN 0-313-29585-9 , pp. 71-80, here p. 78.
5. ↑ Walter Cronkite, KB2GSD (SK). In: ARRL .org , July 21, 2009.
6. ↑ KB2GSD in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) database
7. ↑ List of the award winners ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the Roosevelt Institute website . 
8. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB).
9. ↑ 100th birthday of Walter Cronkite. November 4, 2016, accessed August 23, 2020 .